Like you I keep thinking about this and I don't know why either. There is no chance that there was anything illegal about obtaining this money. He was in his late seventies to early eighties when he passed. He always had just a regular job with some self employment spurts here and there. There might be some cash taken for labor but it would be nearly impossible to work enough side jobs to get that kind of dollars socked away I would think. Growing up they were always a rock solid family who went to church on Sundays and never seemed to live large at all. I am thinking he either received this as an inheritance from a relative and didn't know what to do with it or like mentioned earlier had a fear of banks. Either way it its fun to think about.
I wonder where in his house they hid that large of a pile of cash. How much room does several hundred thousand take up?
Interesting point about the old crisp $100.00 bills. I wish it wasn't so out of line to ask my friend more questions!
You said he did ask you for help dealing with it, so asking questions may not be out of line. Up to you.
Since you say there's no way he did something illegal, I'll go with that. I wonder how old the bills are. If they vary in age from new to 60 years old, that's a pattern of socking it away and would look very legit. If they are mostly pretty new, or all from around the same date, it raises a lot of questions of how he or someone else came into sudden wealth like that.
I just checked my wallet, 27 bills, oldest from 2000. So let's say most of the bills are from 1964-1980. That tells me that in 1980, he (or someone who gave him the money) came across a big stash. Did he find a pile of drug money, or a bag from a bank heist? Was another relative involved in illegal activities and he inherited the cash? Or a friend was involved, and gave him a suitcase to hold until things cooled down, and never came back for it? This isn't legally obtained money. Maybe the statue of limitations will have run out. Not sure how that works. More reason to contact a lawyer.
Of course the old guy may have decided at some point he didn't trust banks anymore, and pulled all of his money out, but there would probably still be a record of that transaction somewhere. Or moved into a house and found money in a wall. I think you're supposed to pay taxes on that, but again statute of limitations may have run out.
Sounds like jetpack has the most useful answer based on experience. I'd be running it by an estate attorney first. Running it through the estate seems like the best way. Especially with multiple people involved. Otherwise, not only do you have to be careful, but you have to hope that the others are too.
Not quite as much fun to have $100K in a bank than it is to be spending it down in cash, but it'd be nice not having to look over your shoulder all the time.
, so they let me measure a stack of 1000 used hundred dollar bills. Since they were all used, they didn't sit as flat as a stack of all new bills. Interesting, I noticed there were still a few of the older 100 bills in the super stack. (They didn't have stacks of new $100 bills to compare.) Away it was exactly 7 inches high. Not really very impressive.
